Richards To Decide on Closing Schools for Retarded

Gov. Ann W. Richards of Texas is expected to decide by next week
whether to shut down 2 of 13 state schools for the mentally retarded,
thus putting an end to a 19-year-old legal battle that has deeply
divided the state's disability community.

The state must target at least two schools for closing in order to
comply with a court settlement.

Deciding which schools to close, however, has been an emotional
process for the state.

Although Texas has lagged behind many other states in shifting from
institutional to community-based care for the retarded, the debate
there has continued to raise basic questions about the best way to care
for such people.

On one side of the issue are the parents of current state-school
residents, who say they are fearful for their children's future if the
institutions are closed. Those parents are joined by the communities in
which the schools are located, which stand to lose hundreds of jobs
once the institutions shut down.

On the other side are the state's major disability organizations,
which argue that citizens with disabilities have a right to better
services in mainstream community settings.

"This is a terrible, hard gut-wrenching issue,'' said Andy Homer, an
aide to Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, an Austin Democrat who has
criticized the state's handling of the issue. "There is no clear right
thing to do.''

Group Homes Favored

The state schools have been under the supervision of U.S. District
Court Judge Barefoot Sanders since 1974, when a group of parents and
guardians of institutional residents filed a lawsuit charging that
their children were being neglected and abused in the schools and
lacked needed educational, medical, and psychological services.

Noting that the institutions had made significant improvements over
the years, Judge Sanders in December said he would end the case if the
state closed two schools and took steps to place more residents in
smaller, less segregated settings, such as group homes in the
community.

A special task force appointed to recommend which schools to close
this month selected two--the Travis State School in Austin and Mexia
State School, the state's largest, in rural Mexia. Together, those
institutions house about 1,340 residents and employ about twice that
many workers.

The five-member panel said it chose the two sites for closing
primarily for geographic reasons, to preserve an adequate distribution
of facilities across the state's vast expanse.

The panel also called on the state to shut down two more unspecified
facilities after 1999, when the Mexia and Travis schools would be
slated for closing.

"This reflects a strong commitment to change the direction of
services for people with mental retardation in Texas to a more balanced
mix between large, segregated institutions and community-based
settings,'' said Linda Parrish, a special-education professor at Texas
A&M University and the chairman of the task force.

Governor Richards must decide whether to accept or reject those
recommendations by March 31. Under the terms of the agreement approved
in December, court supervision would end when the first school
closes.

Ms. Richards has said she favors ending the lawsuit. She has also
cautioned, however, that "our most immediate concern is to be certain
that in the event of any closures, every resident affected will be
moved to a place where their well-being is assured.''

'Good Service' at Institutions

Parents of institutional residents have already filed at least two
lawsuits to stop the closures.

"We did not put our son in a state school because we didn't like
him,'' said Fred Snyder, the president of the Parents Association for
the Retarded in Texas, which is appealing the court settlement. "We put
him in a state school because we loved him.''

"We think they're providing good service,'' he added.

Mr. Snyder also pointed out that many of the residents, who have
spent virtually all of their lives in the institutions, now have
elderly parents who cannot care for them at home or travel far to visit
them.

But state officials say closing some schools will allow them to
direct more effort to developing community placements. Some of the
combined $55 million now spent to maintain the Mexia and Travis schools
would be used to fund group homes, where some of the more able
residents would go.

The remaining residents would be transferred to other state
institutions, according to Patricia Cole, the director of health and
human-services policy for Governor Richards.

State schools currently serve only 22 percent of all the state's
mentally retarded clients, Ms. Cole noted, but take up 65 percent of
the funds budgeted for care of that population. "That's not a
balance,'' she said.

The state already has plans to move 300 residents a year into
community settings. But residents often must wait "years and years''
for those placements, Ms. Cole explained.

"If the Governor accepts the recommendations, it will signal, for
the first time in our state, that we are moving toward the community,''
said Libby Doggett, the executive director of the Association of
Retarded Citizens-Texas. "And the community is where we need to
be.''

Dwindling Enrollments

Disability-rights advocates say that Texas has historically been
behind most states in the movement to serve people with mental
retardation in their own communities.

Over the past two decades, an increasing number of states have
closed their institutions as enrollments have dwindled and advocates
have pushed for deinstitutionalization. Changes in federal
special-education law begun in the 1970's have also enabled more
children with disabilities to attend schools in their communities.

New Hampshire, for example, closed its last state school for the
mentally retarded last year, and New York State plans to do so by the
end of the decade.

In Texas, the number of state-school residents has declined from
13,700 in 1974 to 6,700 now, according to Ms. Cole. Most residents are
age 30 or older.

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